Refuge Of Spirits
by Ella Diver Sophis
Summary: Who is Snape? I indulged myself in Alan Rickman's sexy version. Sorry. And PS, Morrigan is not me. R&R - do you like the Avalonian overtones? *snicker*


Morrigan was walking to the common room. It was cold, and she had her arms wrapped round herself for it, clasping her books to her chest. It was evening, just half an hour after everyone was to return to their dormitories.. She felt relatively safe. What did she have to worry about? She is a Seventh Year.  
Torches in cast-iron brackets flickered as she left the quiet wing. Silence filled the school, the gorgeous living resting silence, the ripe and ever-young silence, the air full of air straight from sleepers' lungs - well-used air, full of dreamy smiles and fat like a raincloud.  
Her train of thought was unfortunately interrupted. She had come to her favourite place in the whole castle, a short cloister looking west of the mountains. It ran between two staircases, the ascent to Ravenclaw and the descent to Slytherin. On the wall opposite the windows, there was a carving of two tress from a wizard legend. It looked medieval, thought she discovered it was Victorian, in the style of the Avalonian pre-Raphaelite movement (it had started in the Muggle art-world).   
Her mother says they're too finite, delicate, feminine, pencil thin, romanticx and unrealistic. She is a lover of gales, dales, solid walking boots, long thick stanzas and full-bellied cellos. Naturally, Morrigan had rebelled, though she had never inherited any pre-Raphaelite characteristics of her own except that hazy looking of one dwelling on tragedy. Her mouth, when resting, made that odd, slightly unattractive drooping pout some girls have.  
In the centre of the wall, between each tree was carved a window-seat: it was meant as a triptych. "friends between the two trees." She liked it, she liked its agreement with the living beauty of the school's art, the active parodies of myth and legend in life.  
  
However, she had walked and thought too long already, tried ming absorbed into the honey-rich blue night outside, the scattering of stars. She had not noticed the dark figure at the Ravenclaw end of the window, their own reverie disturbed by hers. He watched her for a while, until her eyes flickered up, and he drew near.  
"Miss Le-Fay?"  
His voice was low and hushed, so as not to disturb the cover of quiet resting in the corridor.  
"Professor Snape," she said, almost too loud of startled or rushed. She was relieved and stirred all at once.  
He fixed her with black eyes and watched her, closely now. Neither spoke.  
"It's late," he said, closing questions.  
He was weighed and weary, his face fading palely even in the gold light of the flames that bathed them both,  
"You look tired," she said, but he did not reply. Turning, she continued."I saw you today, at this defence club Lockheart has started"  
She sat in the window seat, desperate for him to admit her, and seat himself.  
"I didn't see you," he replied ryly, unwavering.  
"I've been thinking about it all day," she replied.  
"I noticed. You were wearing that pout of yours again."  
She ignored him. She couldn't tell if it was affection or amusement, but she had made life bad enough for herself by even tangled her heart up in him in the first place.  
  
"It frightened me, Severus."  
That frightened him equally.  
"Why is Harry Potter in Gryffindor?"  
He watched her. She realised she wore now an even more foolish face: the idiotic, imploring Stupid Girl. He glanced across the corridor, and finally came to sit by me.  
"This," he said, relenting, "is a mystery to all. Surely he should be amgost other Parseltongues. Other forked tongues."  
It stung.  
"Severus," she said, "I don't know you to be so very evil."  
He was blamed and black-marked, and swept like a shadow. She really was beginning to think she loved him.   
"This Gilderoy Lockheart is a bad man."  
He looked away.  
"A fake."  
He briefly lifted his mouth into a whisp of smile.  
"An idiot," she added, raising her voice.  
"Shh," he said, forced to lay the back of his hand warningly on her arm, still clasping the books.  
"Don't tell me you didn't see him stumble back to let Harry fight Malfoy. He was afraid. You led him out of plain foolishness."  
Snape looked at her quizzically. He was about to say something but hesitated.   
"You're being a little too hard, my dear," he smiled.  
"He's a disgrace, don't you think?" she added. This provoked him.  
"Don't speak so ill of Lockhart; you know there's nothing anyone can do about him." Severus rasied his voice at me, a little oclour back in his cheeks.  
"I saw all of it," she said finally.  
She had seena celebrity - celebrated scum - flaunting himself shamelessly but never proving it. She had seen a fool walk all over a wise, sober man who deserves respect, luck and love. She had seen the wiser man step down, even stand up for the fool. He had never said a bad word to Lockhart, never corrected him but ever softly, to save him faling; and was the fool gracious? Grateful? Accepting? No.  
He laid his finger on her cheek, with slightly shivering hands. They were cool. She burnt red.  
"I.." He dropped to a broken whisper, and glanced up secretly at Morrigan through his eyelashes. "Thank you."  
And then she kissed him. In the middle of Hogwarts. Guilty.   
But she wanted only one, or two things: to heal him. Or to hide him. And but to prolong them in the living art of her mind. 


End file.
